Re: Theory adrift: creative use of databases

Op woensdag 18 februari 2015 15:34:47 UTC+1 schreef Nicola:
> May I start a lighthearted thread? I'm sure you have funny accounts (or
> sad, depending on your sense of humor or your current mood) of "creative
> databases" to share!
>
> From a real system:
>
> create table Agent (id int primary key, name varchar(50) not null);
>
> Instance (name is made up):
>
> id name
> --------
> 123 Phyllis Sophical
> ...
> 345 Phyllis Sophical
> ...
> 456 (null)
> ...
> 567 (null)
> millions of other records...
>
> If it is not clear, that is the string '(null)'!
>
> Real conversation:
>
> - Look, 'name' is not unique.
>
> - Yes, in the logical design it was also nullable, because from time to
> time it may happen that we don't know the name of an agent. But then we
> thought that we'd better store only full, clean, records.
>
> - Oh well, let's leave those '(null)'s aside for a moment: what does it
> mean that there are at least two Phyllis Sophical?
>
> - Uhm... I don't know. Possibly, they are two different people with the
> same name: you should check in the Address table whether there are two
> different addresses associated with id's 123 and 345, respectively...
>
> Nicola
>
> --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Not funny. The question whether to laugh or to cry becomes a rhetorical one.

I'll sketch a much "better" one this evening if I can get it typed in. Received on Wed Feb 18 2015 - 16:11:53 CET